Chapter Text
I’m with Everett right now. I flew across oceans to see him. I figured, if anyone can understand me, it’s him. The man hates Theo and has since before I was born. Why wouldn’t he? In the days before he fell in love with my father for a second time, or maybe, in the days before he was able to truly accept being in love with my father, Theo terrorized Pippa. He tried to kiss her twice, mooned over her obviously, flirted poorly, and overall acted in a way far too close to be a good friend. Worse, he did all that even after she had a boyfriend, not caring about who she loved and the commitment she shared. Overall, he was an asshole. Pippa still loved him, had to, in a way; they were family. Everett, however, had no connection to him, no nostalgia for the days before he made her the object of his obsession, when they were just two kids sharing what it meant to be sad with each other. All he saw was a man who made his girlfriend uncomfortable and made himself feel unwelcomed.
This is all to say that the mistrust and loathing that Everett placed upon Theo was well deserved. And, as the same can be said of my contempt for him, I came to feel a kinship with Everett. I came to England for the last of my trip to ask, how do you hate this man ? How on Earth could he stand to spend so many years hating the person my father loved so dear, that my siblings and even mother love as far as they can see; moon and back, Earth and sea.
He said to me, “Kid, it’s easy. I’ve never spoken to Theo for more than an hour at a time. All I know about him is how he feels about me and how clear he made it. I think it’s real fucking easy to match a wavelenght. Theo dislikes me, so I dislike him. Theo on the other hand, he loved you so much. Remember how I came to Sweden one Christmas because Hobie wanted to visit, and we all figured the shop could close from Christmas to New Years? You were about thirteen. Wait, I gotta count on my fingers. How old are you again right now.”
I told him.
“You’re twenty-four, and this was 2026, so yeah, around thirteen. Kid, he threw you over his shoulder and tossed you onto the trampoline outside because you wanted to fight with him. You decided to taunt him with some weird shit. I’m not kidding, you were a creatively cruel little shit, and I loved to watch it because it was funny that you really only did it to Theo.
“You know what you didn’t see, though? While you were asleep, he went out with a broom to the trampoline, crack of dawn or something, and brushed off all the snow and water. He planned out how he was going to mess with you, and he planned out how to make physically throwing you somewhere into a pleasant experience.”
As Everett described it, I couldn’t help but picture it. Though I cannot remember that specific time, I remember the feeling of being thrown, dressed only in house pants and a sweater, onto the trampoline outside where it sat covered in ice and surrounded by snow. If I had really upset him, Theo would climb up the stairs and into the octagon before tossing me down. And, then, he would jump, and I would go flying into the air, screaming. It was an often occurrence since the day he found out it annoyed me at age ten until he couldn’t lift me anymore at fifteen.
One day he picked me up and neither of us knew that would be the last time. There’s no tragedy in that, just a dull ache.
“Kid,” Everett said, pulling me out of my reverie. “I remember how much you yelled and called him names, but you smiled the whole entire time. I don’t think that you knew it, but you did. I hated him because he was a dick to me, and I couldn’t stand to be around him. You hate him because you cannot stand to have him not be around. That’s it. That’s the story.”
At the beginning of this story, for a million years , I thought, I will hate this man . I still do. This man, in a cowardly, selfish move, saw me lose my father and decided that instead of staying to help he would leave me fatherless a second time. I was twenty-three, an adult, and I had never needed my father more in my life, and Theo decided “one down, one more to go.” And he left us.
I can and will try for the rest of my life to hate this man, but I don’t think I’ll be able to. From the age of six, the first day that I had the displeasure of making his acquaintance, I have been trying to hate him. This last year, I have succeeded in my quest like never before. Unfortunately, like the conman he was, he’ll always make me come around. That's just how he is, my father the crook.